The lake is low again, the dam’s pull leaving a wet tattoo on the rocks like a lie that won’t quite scrub off. The Glass House smells like cedar closets and the metallic aftertaste of last night’s storm. I move barefoot across polished concrete, my toes finding hairline grit the vacuum missed, each fleck proof that friction still exists.
I power up the old laptop that lives in the kitchen drawer labeled aprons, because we don’t cook much and secrecy likes a boring costume. I set the phone beside it, screen face down so the camera can stare at the counter instead of me. “Export,” I tell the fertility app, tapping through the cheerful, pastel gates. It answers with balloons of UX kindness and a tiny file icon that spins.
“Come on,” I whisper. “Give me my body back.”
The file lands with a soft chime. I airlift it to the laptop by cable, not cloud, and a spreadsheet opens. Cells, dates, temperatures, green hearts like stickers on a classroom chart. I scroll, scroll, and stop. Columns of daily entries, then a white-out valley where numbers should be.
January: blank between the 10th and the 31st.
April: blank between the 3rd and the 24th.
July: blank between the 6th and the 27th.
Three neat holes. Three months cut like coupons.
My scalp tightens. I drag the window smaller and pull up our calendar, the one Julian shares with donors and storms with aphorisms. The dates line up with the gala seasons—winter fundraiser, spring salon, summer retreat. All three months include one repeating event title: Childfree Cities—Legacy Night. I don’t need a corkboard to see it. I need only the sensation that lives behind my ribs, a door easing shut.
I say it, to hear the math: “Three missing cycles, three donor cycles.”
The voice assistant wakes to my voice and puts her circle on. “I didn’t catch that,” she chirps.
“Library,” I say, and she blinks compliant. I unplug her anyway. The cord snicks free like a hair pulled from a brush.
I scroll back to January and check notes I wrote then: detox, no hormones, doctor later—phrases we invented after his wellness talk about “hormonal clutter.” We were good at inventing principles that protected funding. I was good at believing the version with the least screaming.
The pantry wall hums a low blue, the servers idling behind their polite door. I feel the hum in my teeth. I open the spreadsheet’s raw data tab and check the metadata. Exported now, edited never, but the app’s device audit doesn’t lie: permissions toggled by RookFit Admin (Julian.R) on Jan 10, Apr 3, Jul 6. The same days the cycles dissolved.
Micro-hook #1 catches like a hangnail: If he could quiet my calendar, what else did “wellness” sterilize?
I call into the empty room, louder than I mean to. “Who changed device permissions on January tenth?”
The smart speaker is already unplugged; the house says nothing. Silence has a sound when you expect an answer. It’s the same sound that lived under the donor salon’s applause, the same sound under the “no heirs by design” captioned misquote. A muffled bell, a hand over a mouth.
The smart scale in the bathroom glows awake, a thin lozenge of light. I didn’t step on it. I didn’t even walk by. The heartbeat icon pulses, the Wi-Fi glyph blinks, and the rook etched in the brushed-aluminum corner catches light from the lake. My throat tastes like the copper edge of a bitten lip.
“No,” I say to no one, and to it. I kneel and tilt the scale up. On the underside, a sticker: Cloud Sync: RookWell HQ. A QR code. A line that reads Admin: J.ROOK. I feel the house watching me try to inhabit it.
I carry the scale to the pantry and press my palm to the cabinet seam. The hidden panel clicks. The racks blink: soft greens, a row of resigned blues. Fan air smells faintly like ozone and heated dust. I trace power lines to a small hub labeled HOME HEALTH and pull the LAN, then power. The hum lowers a notch. A system status leaflet flutters on a magnet strip, Rook Foundation logo at the top, the rook’s sharp silhouette where a heart usually lives.
“Lena?” Julian’s voice travels from upstairs, warm like a stage mic. “You up?”
I push the pantry door closed with my hip. “Just getting water,” I call back, and in that sentence I tuck my shoulders, my heartbeat, my audit.
“Big day,” he says, steps descending. “Optics lunch at the Foundry. I thought we could do a joint post about last night—your dress got lovely comments. You’re magnetic in jewel tones.”
He appears in the kitchen haloed by glass and morning gray. He’s in a soft hoodie with the foundation seal on the cuff, rook stitched in tasteful black on black. His smile belongs on donation envelopes.
“Congratulations,” I say, and lift my glass. “Legacy Night played well.”
“Metrics agree,” he says, delighted by the impartiality of numbers. He opens the fridge, grabs the cold brew, and swings the door closed with a hip the cameras love. “Will you be around this afternoon? The techs want to recalibrate the wellness suite. New firmware.”
“Library,” I say, and he laughs, careless.
“You and your safe words,” he says. He reaches to tuck a stray hair behind my ear the way he does on camera. I take half a step back, a dance step I hope reads like choreography and not refusal. His hand pauses, then drops. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Just logging.”
He kisses the top of my head with a press that says both husband and branding. “My archivist,” he murmurs, and the phrase lodges like a splinter. “You make us better.”
He leaves with the gait of a person who does not trip. The front door seals, a whispery hush. The lock chirps. I exhale into the quiet and the house inhales it back.
I return to the laptop and widen the export window. I filter for permissions. There’s the trail: RookFit Admin (Julian.R) toggled Partner Sync: Enabled; Calendar Access: On; Device Admin: On. The app help text frames the permissions as love: “Share your journey!” I copy the audit page to a PDF, drop it into PRJ_ROOK_GLOVEBOX, and write the hash in the paper log I started last night.
“I need a new device,” I say to the red pen on the counter. The pen doesn’t argue.
I rummage through the drawers and find my old phone, the cracked one that died during a hailstorm carpool and survived duct tape. I hold the power button until the apple appears, ghostly and stubborn. I don’t join Wi-Fi. I don’t insert a SIM. I air-gap on purpose and feel a thrill at the analogness of it. The phone pouts at me like a toddler kept from a screen.
I install the fertility app, but I deny every permission, every hug. I name the profile BOOKKEEPER. The interface looks bizarre without access, a cheerful lobby with no doors.
In the bathroom, the scale flashes again, even though I unplugged the hub. A small upload icon climbs a line; a success check replies. I stare until the icon fades. I press my heel to the tile; it’s cool and faintly damp from sink condensation. The house is a mouth and I live on its tongue.
I pick up the scale and spin it like a pizza peel. Four coin batteries blink at me, smug. I pop them with a butter knife. Little domes roll into the trash with a chime that pretends innocence.
Micro-hook #2 snaps taut: If the house keeps a second copy, where does my body live that I don’t?
I grab my keys and a hoodie that still smells faintly of cedar and ramen. Outside, the HOA’s drone zips by, pausing to admire a stroller parked inside someone’s vestibule. My phone pings with the neighborhood app’s push: REMINDER: STROLLERS IN UNITS. THANK YOU FOR KEEPING AMENITIES CHILD-NEUTRAL. I leave it unread and walk the path along the lake. The waterline nips at the rocks; gulls heckle a fisherman; the air tastes rinsed. The lake wind lifts hair off my neck like a mother checking for fever.
The corner store’s bell is tinny and brave. The clerk nods, snapping gum. The wall of notebooks is a field of choices I forgot I had. I pick a spiral with a cardboard cover and a grid that looks like a map if I hold it far away. I add a pack of blue pens and a small stamp pad because ink has authority. On the impulse rack, tiny rook-shaped chess magnets grin under plastic. I don’t buy them. I won’t bring another rook into the house.
“Big test?” the clerk asks, ringing me up.
“Bigger,” I say.
Back home, I set the spiral on the kitchen island and press my palm to the cover. The cardboard warms under my skin, an object taking my temperature without pretending to help. I open to page one. I write the date. I underline it with the red pen because I enjoy the drama.
ENTRY 001—HOUSE HEALTH / BODY LOG / CUSTODY OF SELF.
I write what I know: Export shows three missing cycles: Jan 10–31, Apr 3–24, Jul 6–27. Each aligned with donor “Legacy Night.” Permissions toggled by RookFit Admin (Julian.R). Smart scale uploads to RookWell HQ; admin J.ROOK. LAN + power removed from HOME HEALTH hub; scale still uploaded via onboard batteries. Removed batteries.
I press the stamp pad to the corner and leave my thumbprint. Red halo. I blow on it. The page smells like wet ink and cardboard and a little iron. My hand steadies itself by having a job.
The pantry feels me looking at it. I feel the pantry looking back. I open the door and take a photo of the HOME HEALTH hub’s backplate, the serial numbers like dog tags. I snap the rook emblem on the instruction leaflet because branding is a confession. I add the pictures to PRJ_ROOK_GLOVEBOX and to a microSD card I intend to hide behind a baseboard.
The front door lock chirps again and then twice more, a staccato. I freeze. “Library,” I whisper to my own body. The locks settle. A delivery drone thunks a padded envelope onto the stoop and whirs away, greener-than-thou. I exhale, shaky.
My phone lights. A notification blooms from the fertility app: Your partner made an update. The words are pastel, but no color can hide teeth. I go cold in a way that makes room for heat.
I tap, careful. The app now shows Partner Insights Enabled—Thank Your Partner! A confetti animation pops like a taunt. I take a screenshot before the bits fall. I open Settings. Every toggle I turned off last night has crept back to On. The audit says Updated: 10:14 AM by RookFit Admin (Julian.R). The time is the time he was kissing the top of my head and blessing my archival gifts.
“No,” I say, and this time the word has a backbone.
I turn the phone off. I turn the old phone on. I open the paper notebook to a new line and write: Partner Insights enabled without consent. Audit log captured. Reaction: refusal.
The refrigerator hums to a higher pitch and then settles, a small domestic weather pattern. Through the glass, the lake lifts a little in a wind push and then collapses like a breath held too long. I feel my pulse find the dam’s rhythm and reject it.
I unplug the last smart speaker. I pull the plug on the stovetop hub that tracks whether I boil water “safely.” I go room to room, tugging cords like veins. The house becomes a little duller, a hair less clever. I leave the Wi-Fi up; I need it to observe where light goes.
“This is ridiculous,” I say, not to scold myself but to describe the line I’m crossing. “We’re ridiculous for calling this wellness.”
The door camera blinks. I walk up to it and cover the lens with a Post-it. I draw a rook on the paper with a quick square head and two notches, then put a big, childish X through it. I take a picture of the Post-it as if it can testify later.
The bathroom mirror throws my face back at me. The scale lies on its side in the trash, coins like eyes shut tight. I open the spiral again and write ENTRY 001—CONT. I add a section called Hypotheses and list them in short, clean bullets:
- Legacy Night detox = data redaction.
- Admin status routes “wellness” through Julian’s cloud.
- Smart devices create a second narrative. Mine must exist on paper.
Micro-hook #3 bites down: If the devices write a marriage for me, what marriage can I write they can’t erase?
My phone buzzes with Julian’s name. I watch it until the buzz stops. Immediately a text arrives: Lunch moved. Techs at 2 pm—don’t worry, they’ll be quick. Love you. A rook emoji sits at the end, jaunty, like we share an inside joke and not a chessboard.
I reply: Library. He sends a laughing face and a heart, a pair that performs reciprocity like a duet.
I take the spiral into the pantry and lay it on the lowest rack as if the notebook were a sacrament and the servers a congregation. I whisper to the rows of blinking lights, to the humming fans, to the cables bundled like veins: “I’m not your data.”
The house, being a house, says nothing. It registers my humidity and temperature and posture. It loves me in numbers it can sell.
I close the pantry door, walk back to the island, and write one more line in block letters: ENTRY 001 CLOSED.
Then I add a smaller one under it, in my mother’s handwriting, because sometimes I lend myself her hand: Keep receipts because love forgets.
Somewhere inside the walls, a relay clicks. The smart scale, dead in the trash, gives a single, dying blink. The phone on the counter—my current phone, not the air-gapped one—lights up with a new push from RookWell HQ: Firmware queued. Please step on scale.
I look at the notebook. I look at the door. I look at the rook Post-it and its clumsy X.
I put the pen down with care, cap snug, and say out loud to the empty, listening house, “Not today.”
The app’s notification fades, but the log I wrote doesn’t. I press my thumb again into the stamp pad and mark the bottom of the page. Red whorl, definite.
When the pantry hum ticks louder, I don’t run to stop it. I hold still and let the fear pass through like wind through a storm door. Then I flip the notebook to page two and write tomorrow’s date, not out of optimism but out of jurisdiction. If the devices keep a calendar of me, I will keep one they can’t eat.
Outside, the lake slaps the rocks with a petty, satisfying sound. I imagine it rising two inches by morning and think: good. Let it lift everything that isn’t bolted down. Let it test the footing.